Structured document encoder, method for encoding structured document and program therefor

Abstract

A structured document encoder for encoding a structured document which defines a tree structure including nodes includes: a node identifier assigning unit for assigning a node identifier to each of the nodes; a node position information generator for generating node position information for each of the nodes, node position information of an given node from the nodes comprising at least an identifier of the given node, an identifier of a child node of the given node, and an identifier of a next sibling node which has the same parent node as the given node; and a structured document encoded representation generator for generating a structured document encoded representation by combining the node position information and the node content information of all of the nodes.

Description

[0001] Priority is claimed on Japanese Patent Application No. 2003-379913, filed Nov. 10, 2003, the content of which is incorporated herein by reference. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] 1. Field of the Invention [0003] The present invention relates to a structured document encoder for encoding information related to the structured document, and to a method for encoding a structured document and a program therefor. [0004] 2. Description of Related Art [0005] In a conventional encoding format used for encoding structured documents, e.g., XML documents, an encoder first parses a structured document to obtain a tree structure defined by a structured document. The encoder then encodes element names, attribute names, attribute values, and the like which represent nodes contained in the tree structure. The encoder separately encodes an element content of each of the nodes, and generates a structured document encoded representation by combining these encoded representations. One exemplar...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0007] Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a structured document encoder for generating an encoded representation of a structured document which can reduce processing steps for extracting information on a particular node in a tree structure defined in the structured document, and a method for encoding a structured document and a program therefor.

[0008] The present invention was conceived to solve the above-mentioned problems, and is directed to a structured document encoder for encoding a structured document which defines a tree structure including nodes having node content information including: a node identifier assigning unit for assigning a node identifier to each of the nodes; a node position information generator for generating node position information for each of the nodes, node position information of an given node from the nodes including at least an identifier of the given node, an identifier of a child node of the given node, and an identifier of a next sibling node which has the same parent node as the given node; and a structured document encoded representation generator for generating a structured document encoded representation by combining the node position information and the node content information of all of the nodes. In a structured document encoded representation generated by the above-mentioned structured document encoder, for each of the nodes in the tree structure defined by the structured document, both an identifier of a child node which facilitates finding the position of each node and an identifier of the next sibling node which has the same parent node as each node are stored. Thus, by using the structured document encoded representation, information related to the content of a particular node in the tree structure defined by the structured document, such as an element content, an element name, an attribute name, and an attribute value, can be easily obtained with fewer processing steps.

[0009] Furthermore, according to the present invention, the node position information generated by the node position information generator includes an identifier of a parent node. Therefore, information related to a parent node can be readily obtained from its child node with fewer processing steps.

Problems solved by technology

Therefore, extracting only information related to a second child node of a root node the encoded representation of the tree structure requires a lot of processing.

As a result, in order to extract information related to a particular node in the tree structure of the structured document from the encoded representation, another parsing processing should be carried out, which results in longer processing time.

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